In this episode of the Post-Acute POV, our host Kevin Whitehurst, SVP of skilled nursing solutions at MatrixCare sits down with Lisa Horton, director of clinical compliance, CDP, ALG Senior, a triple certified MatrixCare user. Kevin and Lisa discuss the benefits of certification programs and how Lisa has used her multiple certifications to improve her organization’s training and efficiency which ultimately improves their bottom line.

The two also cover how to overcome employees’ resistance to adopting technology and Lisa ends the conversation by providing her top tips and recommendations for other MatrixCare users looking to get started with certification programs. Tune in to learn more.

Topics discussed during this episode:

  1. [00:38 – 01:39]: Lisa describes her origin story and how she began working in senior care.
  2. [02:01 – 03:22]: How Lisa’s organization encouraged her to earn multiple certifications and how they helped her grow within her organization.
  3. [3:34 – 5:04]: She details how her certifications play a role in mentoring others on technology adoption and how ALG Senior addresses the issue of employees’ resistance to adopt technology.
  4. [5:15 – 5:45]: How technology can help with common workforce challenges.
  5. [5:55 – 7:43]: What ALG Senior’s new hire onboarding program contributes to EHR education across interdisciplinary teams and how each team keeps up with different software releases.
  6. [7:55 – 8:24]: Lisa’s top tips and recommendations for other MatrixCare customers.

Resources

Transcript

Announcer

Hi, and welcome to the Post-Acute Point of View, our discussion hub for healthcare technology in the out of hospital space. Here, we talk about the latest news and views on trends and innovation that can impact the way post-acute care providers work. And we take a look at how technology can make a difference in today’s changing healthcare landscape, in both home-based and facility-based care organizations and the lives of the people they serve.

Announcer

Today, we hear from Kevin Whitehurst, senior vice president of skilled nursing solutions for MatrixCare, and his special guest. Let’s dive in.

Kevin Whitehurst

Hi, welcome everyone. This is Kevin Keith Whitehurst, senior vice president, skilled nursing solutions at MatrixCare, and I want to thank you all for joining us today. Today, we have a special guest, Lisa Horton. She’s the director of clinical compliance at ALG Senior, here to discuss certification programs and how she became a triple certified MatrixCare user. So let’s jump on in. Tell our audience about your origin, your origin story.

Lisa Horto

Well, originally my career path, I was in a hair salon. My grandmother developed dementia. We had to put her in a skilled nursing facility. I think I spent more time in the nursing home than I did in my hair salon, so I decided that maybe healthcare and taking care of the elderly was more my pathway. So I changed career paths and went into healthcare. And I’ve been in healthcare for almost 30 years now, and I’ve been with ALG now going on 13 years.

Kevin Whitehurst

Wow. That’s amazing. I have 30 years in the industry as well, lisa, so welcome to the 30-something club. When you look at everything that you’ve done, how did your organization encourage you to get certified? And how did this help your professional development and growth within your team or within your organization?

Lisa Horto

Well, we were first introduced with MatrixCare in about 2014. We first started looking at them and I was working with a group of people to look at how MatrixCare would help us with assisted living in North Carolina. I worked with a team of MatrixCare people for many years. We launched our first facility in 2018 with MatrixCare and I’ve been the lead of that. So in 2018, I decided to go for my first certification, being that I had already been working with them for about four years on different platforms and trying to see how we could utilize that in the assisted living.

Kevin Whitehurs

Okay. So I understand you didn’t stop at one certification. You were certified three times for three different focused areas of our MatrixCare solutions. So what made you keep striving for more?

Lisa Horton

Well, in 2020, I took over the marketing MatrixCare piece, so I was trying to learn that. And I felt like the more I knew about it, the better I could help our organization and the people using that platform. So I decided that I needed to go for that certification as well. And then I thought, well, there’s only one more, so why don’t we go for it? And so, now I am certified in all three platforms for MatrixCare and the only one in ALG that can assist with all this great training product we have.

Kevin Whitehurst

Wow, that’s awesome. So when you look at the certification, how does the certification in your role play in mentoring others around technology adoption, which we know is a challenge in our industry?

Lisa Horton

Well, it helps me train the trainers. We have several that are train the trainers in our company, and it helps me show them how to use the platform, how to change things, how to make things easier for the facility-level staff to be using it. And we’re really excited with what’s come out with all the new releases in the last year or two, and looking forward to the new releases coming out.

Kevin Whitehurst

Excellent. So many of our customers feel that their staff are not on board with using technology, or at least using it to its fullest. How would you suggest addressing that in the industry?

Lisa Horton

Well, we’ve run across that a few times. We’ve had a lot of people tell us that they are not tech savvy and they don’t know how to use computers. And I get them into our training environment and I let them have fun. I show them how easy it is to use the product, how easy it is to use on any type of smart device. You don’t have to have a lot of computer knowledge to be able to run MatrixCare. And I just tell them to explore and have fun with it. And we’ve overcome a lot of people thinking they can’t use it by just letting them know they’re not going to break anything, just get in there and explore.

Kevin Whitehurst

It sounds like a great way to do it, especially when you position it as having fun, that takes out the intimidation, I’m sure.

Lisa Horton

They like getting in our training. We have the MatrixCare training environment, and so that makes them a little bit more comfortable, because they know that they can go in there and just train and practice and have fun and try different things.

Kevin Whitehurst

And they’re not going to mess up anything or create any problems by doing something wrong.

Lisa Horton

Absolutely.

Kevin Whitehurst

That’s awesome. So technology use can definitely help when it comes to the workforce challenges that our industry encounters. How does ALG Senior address that?

Lisa Horton

So we have a team of divisional nurses. We also have support specialist team that works with me in MatrixCare. And we help oversee each and every MatrixCare, And we’ve got about 130 facilities right now in MatrixCare. And we watch that daily and we support and we guide, we give guidance, we develop policies based off of maybe things that we see we could do better or change. So it gives our higher level staff the ability to help monitor from afar and guide the facilities.

Kevin Whitehurst

Okay. So what is your new hire onboarding program look like when it comes to the EHR education across your interdisciplinary teams?

Lisa Horton

Well, it can vary. I have developed a very friendly user guide to give out to the disciplinaries, so the aides have their own, the medication aides have their own, the nurses have their own. We’ve created short video webinars for them to be able to view. I do hold live webinars and live zoom meetings with them, if they prefer that. But since each individual learns different, we’ve developed different ways for them to be able to learn the MatrixCare and different avenues that they can try to go down to get the information they need. So if they read better or they watch video better, or we actually have some hands-on videos where you can start and it’ll prompt you to go through different areas.

Kevin Whitehurst

Well, that’s nice to have options for people with different learning styles, so I’m sure that helps. So when you look at that, how do you keep up with the software technology changes with each release?

Lisa Horton

I actually get into the MatrixCare community at least twice a week. I have watched some of the videos at least five times, because I’ll get interrupted and need to go back and watch again. And then, I take it and I get that into our training development, and then I get some training around that. And then, I do the releases to the community so that they have the different options to learn the new releases, whether it be the live webinars or the reading material or the watched videos. So I try to keep up on that, keep it going on a regular basis, and then get that information out there to them so that they can learn it.

Kevin Whitehurst

Lisa, it sounds like you’re responsible for educating all 130 facilities on these release changes, these technology changes?

Lisa Horton

I am the one responsible for making sure I understand them and then, again, I release the training and I trained the trainers so that they can assist their community.

Kevin Whitehurst

Okay. Wow. That’s amazing. So lastly, can you just provide some recommendations or your top tips for other MatrixCare customers?

Lisa Horton

Well, my top tips would be, you need to have fun in MatrixCare. You need a training environment. You need to be able to explore the product. You need to give your ideas. There has been so many ideas that I sent to MatrixCare that have come out in releases, that are coming out into releases that help. But have fun with it. I mean, MatrixCare has grown so much since 2014, what we can see, and we can just see greater things in the future. Have fun with the product. We get great data out of it.

Kevin Whitehurst

Oh, that’s so good to hear. Well, that really sounds like there’s a lot of benefits to the certification. You’ve gone through that and you’ve seen firsthand the value and the benefit that certification can play in your role at ALG Senior. So definitely want to thank you for joining us on this podcast. This was a great topic, the importance of the certification programs. So thank you again, Lisa, for sharing your insight with us.

Lisa Horton

Thank for having me.

Announcer

That concludes the latest episode of the Post-Acute Point of View from MatrixCare. We have a lot of guests and topics coming up that you won’t want to miss, so be sure to subscribe. If you’ve enjoyed today’s podcast and if you have a topic you’d like us to discuss, leave us a review. To learn more about MatrixCare and our solutions and services, visit matrixcare.com. You can also follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. Thank you for listening. Be well, and we’ll see you next time.